


Death and his duty

by numbika



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Death's job is not so easy, Hopeful Ending, little angst, poor fella needs a hug sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 22:45:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14820347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numbika/pseuds/numbika
Summary: Death has to go and do his duty, but it's not always easy. Especially because he is not a coldhearted being.~~~I'm suck at summaries. Death needs to work, and he is not happy about it. Some sad stuff, sorry.





	Death and his duty

The monotone rustling filled the room. Grain of sand fell onto grain of sand. On the shelfs hourglasses appeared and disappeared. The door of the room creaked open, as it was expected in regards of ominous places like these. Death walked amongst the shelves and stopped, taking two slowly emptying hourglass from one of them. One of them, barely had any sand in them to begin with. Death sunk the timepieces into the folds of its robes, and slowly walked out of the house.

 

The length of one's life isn’t decided by anyone. It was controlled by chance happenings, small coincidences, and carelessness. The gods only bothered to interfere in very special cases, where they thought that it would be a good sport to do so.

No, life was in fact, not fair. Nobody could say that it was. Yet still, everyone from the oldest to youngest, tried to enjoy it for their own way, and tried to keep enjoying it as long as they could.

 

The rider moved trough the snowy forest without making any sound. Small snowflakes floated downwards, settling around the smouldering ruins of a small wooden house.

Death slowly landed and glanced towards the two hourglasses. By this time, both were completely empty. When it looked up again, a woman wandered out from behind the destroyed structure. She wore a mangled, thin overcoat and simple pants. During the winter, in the middle of the mountains, it gave absolutely no protection against the cold.

As Death walked closer, he was able to see the owner of the other hourglass too, she was nestled inside the arms of her mother, wrapped in a blanket, still clinging to her even as a shade.

 

No, life was not fair, not with anyone. Too many stories ended, before they could even properly begin.

 

The mother's hair reached down to her waists, and she was fixated on her child, never letting her gaze wander off of her. "It was my fault…" She said, and looked around, eyes filled with sorrow, and regret. "If I don’t fall asleep…"

Death looked at the barely half a year-old child and remained silent. The small girl shifted a little in her mother's arms, who cuddled her closer. Even though she left her body, there are feelings, that the soul could not go of.

The snow fell ever on, reminding everyone of the constant, cruel passage of time.

"I don’t want to…"

Death didn’t spoke, only waited, letting her continue. If anyone would have been near, that person might have been able to spot as the bony fingers tightened around the two hourglasses.

"I don’t want to let her go. It was my fault, but I don’t want to…" She glanced down to the brown haired little girl. The small child watched her mother, and the tall strange man, with tiny, blue eyes. "I don’t have to let her go, do I?"

Even the silence became still and motionless, not wanting to disturb the two souls.

NO. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO. The answer came slowly and deliberately. It carried a deep weight, a supernatural echo, a gentle but unstoppable force so great that nothing in the realm of the living, or the dead would have dared to challenge its ruling. Death placed his bony hand on the shoulder of the woman, gently guiding her. The infinity darkness within its empty eye sockets was somehow more mournful than before.

This was not the first time that he felt the weight of his duty. It wasn’t his fault, but still, he couldn’t help but feel that it was not right. Somebody, somebody else but him should have remembered those who left, keeping their names alive. But it was not to case. Nobody gets a second chance to live the same life again. Death didn’t keep the memories of the departed because it was his duty, even though it certainly was, he kept it because he wanted it. This way, at least somebody remembered them. Their names lived on inside Death's mind, and as long as he exists, some fragment of them exists too.

The snowing intensified, and the blizzard swallowed the rider, and mother and child at the same time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the reading, I hope you liked it.  
> Have a nice day ^^


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